BOONE, N.C. – App State Baseball returns to Hickory for a second consecutive weekend, where the team gets set to face UMass Lowell in a three-game weekend series. First pitch on Friday is set for 3:15 p.m., with Saturday's contest slated for 2 p.m. The weekend wraps up with a 1 p.m. finale on Sunday. All three games will be played at L.P. Frans Stadium, home of the Hickory Crawdads, and will be broadcast on AppStateSports.com.
The first 100 students at Friday's contest will receive free admission, free parking and a concession voucher.
SCOUTING THE MOUNTAINEERS
App State is 1-3 on the season, after dropping a midweek contest to High Point on Tuesday. App State slugged four home runs in the contest, but the Panthers recorded 20 hits and were able to use five home runs of their own to pull out a 13-7 win.
Tyler Figueroa tallied the second two-homer game of his career, finishing with three hits, while
Joseph Zamora also enjoyed a three-hit effort. App State opened the season by dropping two of three games against Queens last weekend in Hickory.
John Kramer leads the Mountaineers at the plate, batting .500 through four games with two home runs and five RBIs, while Figueroa is batting .438 with a pair of homers and seven runs driven in. Friday starter
Caleb Cross allowed just one run over 4.1 innings last week against Queens in his first outing since 2023, after missing last season due to injury.
SCOUTING THE RIVER HAWKS
UMass Lowell opened its season by competing in the Swig & Swine College Baseball Classic in Charleston, S.C. The River Hawks defeated Mercyhurst and Ball State in their first two games of the season, before dropping the finale to Towson. Brandon Fish led the River Hawks at the plate, going six-for-nine with a home run and three RBIs. Joseph DeLanzo also drove in seven runs on the weekend. UML starting pitchers combined to strike out 16 batters in 15 innings across the weekend, while issuing just five walks. The River Hawks were picked fifth out of seven teams in the America East Preseason Poll. Outfielders Alex Luccini and Carlos Martinez and pitcher Michael Simes were all named Preseason All-Conference.
SERIES HISTORY
App State and UMass Lowell are meeting for the first time in program history.
2024 RECAP
The 2024 App State baseball team posted 33 wins, the most for the program since 2012, and for the second consecutive year won 30 games and made it to the Sun Belt Tournament semifinals.
Along the way, App State shattered several individual and team records.
Banks Tolley was named a Second Team All-American by ABCA/Rawlings, becoming the first Mountaineer since Daniel Kassouf in 2012 to earn All-American honors. Tolley and
Austin St. Laurent were named All-Sun Belt honorees, and both were selected to the Southeast All-Region team. Tolley was named the Sun Belt's Newcomer of the Year, and St. Laurent was later drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 14th round of the MLB Draft.
App State finished with an RPI of 72, the best mark in
Kermit Smith's tenure, highlighted by a series win over No. 13 Coastal Carolina, which marked the first win over a top-15 program since the 2012 team took two of three from No. 7 LSU in Baton Rouge. The team posted 16 wins in Sun Belt play, winning six conference series for the second straight year. App State clinched a top-six seed in the Sun Belt tournament on a walk-off grand slam from
Banks Tolley in the final home series of the season against Georgia Southern. It capped a three-homer game for Tolley which tied the program record for a game. Tolley also set the single-season home run record with 26 home runs, while
CJ Boyd set the App State career home run record with 35.
WHERE THEY RANKED – 2024
| STAT |
VALUE |
Sun Belt Rank |
National Rank |
| Hit by pitch |
124 |
2nd |
6th |
| Home runs |
96 |
2nd |
38th |
| Runs |
484 |
3rd |
27th |
| Fielding percentage |
.977 |
1st |
44th |
| Batting average |
.296 |
4th |
63rd |
| On-base percentage |
.411 |
3rd |
32nd |
| Slugging percentage |
.508 |
1st |
39th |
The team set all-time records for home runs (96) and runs scored (484) and finished in the top-10 in App State history in hits, slugging, OPS and stolen bases. The pitching staff also recorded 446 strikeouts, the second-most in team history.
BOMBS AWAY
App State blasted five home runs in their first weekend of the season versus Queens and added four more long balls on Tuesday against High Point, continuing their power surge over the past three seasons. App State set a program record by hitting 96 home runs in 2024, eclipsing the previous record of 90 set by the 1986 team. App State finished the season second in the Sun Belt and 32
nd nationally in home runs-per-game with 1.75. App State has seen a major uptick in the power department the last two seasons, slugging 67 home runs in 2023 after just 29 the year prior.
Banks Tolley set the single-season program record with 26 home runs, while
CJ Boyd added 18 (eclipsing his previous single-season record of 17 in 2023), while
Austin St. Laurent added 14 dingers.
YEAR HOME RUNS GAMES HR/GM
2025 9 4 2.25
2024 96 55 1.75
2023 67 55 1.23
2022 29 53 0.55
CROSS 'EM UP
Redshirt senior right-hander
Caleb Cross made his return to the mound on Friday against Queens after missing the 2024 season due to injury. Cross struck out four batters in 4.1 innings of work, allowing just one earned run. Cross joined the Mountaineers in 2022 as a transfer from UNC Asheville, reuniting with his brother Hayden who was a five-year catcher for App State. In Caleb's career on the mound, he has made 37 appearances and eight starts, earning a total of eight victories and posting a 5.92 career ERA. In 2022 he combined with Eli Ellington on a one-hitter against UT Arlington.
FANTASTIC FIG
Tyler Figueroa has been a valuable addition to the Mountaineers' lineup this season. The transfer from Siena faced the Mountaineers in a three-game series last year in Hickory as an opponent. He went on to earn 2024 MAAC All-Rookie team honors. The infielder has opened his time with the Mountaineers batting .438 with two doubles and seven RBIs through four games.
STRIKE THROWERS
App State's pitching staff has opened the 2025 season by consistently throwing strikes and getting ahead in counts. After issuing over six walks-per-nine innings in 2023, the Mountaineers trimmed that number to 5.4 walks-per-nine in 2024. So far in 2025, App State's walks-per-nine has plummeted to 4.9.
BEHIND THE DISH
Senior catcher
Braxton Church is the only Mountaineers' position player who has been on the field in each of the past three seasons. In his career Church has played in 87 games and made 59 starts. As the Mountaineers' primary catcher last season, Church hit a career-high seven home runs, while reaching base 88 times in 46 games (.404 OPB). The Wilkesboro, N.C. native grew up just half an hour from Boone and comes from a family of Mountaineers. Through four games Church is batting .375 with three doubles and four runs knocked in.
NEWCOMER SUCCESS
App State newcomers wasted no time contributing for the Mountaineers this season. Charlotte
Juan Correa blasted a career-high two home runs in the season-opener last Friday against Queens, while Ole Miss transfer
John Kramer has also gone deep twice and is batting .500 through four games this season. On the mound, Trevecca Nazarene transfer
Caleb Marks retired each of the first 12 hitters he faced in his start on Sunday.
SUPERB SUN BELT
The Sun Belt continues to be one of the top conferences in college baseball, ranking fifth in the nation in RPI in each of the past two seasons. Last year nine Sun Belt programs finished in the top-100 nationally in RPI with four teams making the NCAA tournament.
PROGRAM TRAJECTORY
- App State has recorded back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first time since 2012-13
- The Mountaineers have finished in the top-100 nationally in RPI three of the past five seasons
- App State has finished among the top-six in the Sun Belt conference standings three of the past four seasons
- App State is the only Sun Belt team to have won at least one game at each of the last four conference tournaments
RPI BY YEAR (UNDER KERMIT SMITH)
2024 - 72
2023 - 88
2022 - 120
2021 - 167
2020 - 62 (SEASON CUT SHORT DUE TO COVID-19 AFTER 16 GAMES)
2019 - 189
2018 - 182
2017 - 183
UP NEXT
App State will travel to Johnson City, Tenn. on Tuesday to renew a long-time rivalry with ETSU. First pitch from Thomas Stadium is set for 3 p.m.
